Liberal party spokesperson James Paterson is next up on the media carousel. He seems a little cranky this morning.

He is asked by the ABC hosts:

Because we are in WA, I wanted to start off with a very WA-specific question. Why do you think that this used to be a Liberal Party stronghold – why do you think that Western Australians have turned away and that this is now a stronghold for the Labor Party?

Paterson:

Well, I wouldn’t get too ahead of myself if I was the prime minister and the government. Not a single vote has been cast yet, let alone counted. And it’s presumptuous to assume how Western Australians are going to vote before they have the opportunity to do so. But speaking more generally over the last couple of years, it’s certainly the case that state Labor governments in WA have been popular, particularly during the pandemic period. We know that the former premier was well-regarded because he closed Western Australia’s border and kept COVID out of the state for some period of time. That’s certainly lifted the Labor brand in WA.

Q: Let’s go to some WA. policies. Maybe let’s start with tax. Your party was pretty clear on this a couple of weeks ago, saying that Labor’s tax cuts in the budget were a blatant bribe. How then would you describe your tax offset, or tax payment, for low- and middle-income earners which was announced yesterday?

Paterson:

We describe it as a cost-of-living tax offset, and it’s desperately needed by many Australians because they’ve suffered so much from rising cost of living under the Labor Party’s watch, under the Prime Minister. I mean, grocery prices are up 30% over the last three years. Electricity prices are up 32%. Gas prices are up 34%. The Prime Minister promised Australians before the last election that they would be better off.

He even said that they would have cheaper mortgages. But that’s not Australians’ experience. They need help to try and restore their standard of living. We’ve got a comprehensive plan to do that. It includes immediate up-front relief with a reduction in petrol and diesel tax that will save people $14 every time they fill up. And ongoing assistance with reduced energy prices through our gas plan. But it also includes this one-off cost-of-living tax offset, because a lot of Australians have racked up big credit card bills on Labor’s watch over the last three years, and they need help.

What the Coalition is offering is a temporary return to the low and middle income tax offset, which the Morrison government set to phase out, and then Labor just continued on that path. It was created when the stage three tax cuts were originally laid out (because the Morrison government’s stage three tax cuts overwhelmingly favoured the wealthy) so the $1,500 for low and middle income workers was a little short term cushion for the permanent and terribly distributed stage three tax cuts. Labor changed the distribution of the stage three tax cuts, and then at the last budget (delivered last month) announced a modest ‘top up’ tax cut for most tax payers, which the Coalition called a “cruel hoax” and an “election bribe”.